My name is Fred and I am a gay conservative living in Ottawa. This blog supports limited government, the right of the State of Israel to live in peace and security, and tries to expose the threat to us all from cultural relativism, post-modernism, and radical Islam.
I am also the founder of the Free Thinking Film Society in Ottawa (www.freethinkingfilms.com)

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

So-called gay rights activists disappointing...

The Margaret Somerville kerfuffle at Ryerson this week is indicative of the short-sighted thinking you can expect from gay rights activists. It appears that Ms. Somerville is very deserving of an honorary degree - and I just wish that these so-called gay activists would have just ignored the whole thing.

Not everybody supports gay marriage - and gay activists need to respect differences of opinion. In fact, what these activists are doing is just making more enemies - and influencing nobody positively. They ill-service the gay community.

I just wish they would put the same effort into protesting the treatment of gay people in Iran and other muslim countries. On this, gay activists are mostly silent.

11 Comments:

Sean P., Vancouver-Quadra said...

Gay activists and the most radical feminists are silent on the treatment of their peers in Iran.

I was deeply upset with the way that both the CBC and CTV National News presented their pieces on that issue lastnight (Monday, 19 June)....It was as if they were arguing that to NOT support gay marriage wouldn't make you a true Canadian....As if those who oppose gay marriage would do so out of pure and utter hatred and evil.

Also, I thought that post secondary institutions were to be places of free speech? I guess that is only true if you are of the centre-left to far left, hmm?

This is a very enlightened perspective to this subject. I am heartened to hear that some gay folks actually find the activists' actions offensive.

I agree that it is causing an undesirable backlash for the gay community.

We often hear the view that you cannot cherry-pick rights, but many of the angry gay activists want to take away the right to Freedom of Speech from anyone who disagrees with their POV. Just simply disagreeing with something is not an act of hate. If it is, then we need thought-monitoring police.

Good posting sir: As i've said before I don't agree with gay marraige. Civil unions, ok.

You posting took some guts. What really pisses me off about the gay rights lobby and other media favored lobbies is that their demands are always put in the context of a "right" and therefore it becomes "their way or the highway". As wel, they are always pandered to by a completely compliant media that never critically scrutinizes their motives, actions, or agenda.

Good piece, Fred.There is a Gay Catechism held by some activists that tend to try and encourage mainstream acceptance of extreme behaviour as constitutional rights - the sorry thing is that such is demeaning to folks just trying to live their lives.This week Gay Pride will see: It's Parade Marshall from Sweden call all people Medieval who don't agree that traditional values are defunct; Hundreds of gay and lesbians marching in various stages of nudity and acting in a manner that is demeaning to anyone who believes in dignity and self respect.And the SSM tempest in a teacup had tens of thousands of people insulting each other when only hundreds ever took the step.Can't we all just get along?The Somerville stuff, as well as the Jim Loney reappearance really pissed me off and did nothing to help rationalization of differences.

Yes, I agree with Brian. This is a great piece. I think we need to hear more from rational people such as yourself, Fred.

The activists and extremists are doing as much to polarize opinion with respect to tolerance as the militant native minority is doing in Caledonia. It hurts the cause; not help it. But they just can't see it. There is a lot of anger on both sides.

Fred what are we going to do with you?Does praise from homophobes please you? For the record...Margaret Somerville got her degree,nobody stopped her from speaking. All they did was exercise their democratic rights by registering their protest with dignity and class. Somerville is free to express her opposition to gay marriage. I don't like the way she does it by putting down gay parents and their children. But that's her democratic right. What I do object to is the way she actively campaigns for the use of the notwithstanding clause to strip acquired rights away from all of us. When she does that she crosses the line in my book. I'd feel the same way if she tried to do that to any other group of Canadians. Wouldn't you? Or are you in favour of the notwithstanding clause as well? That would really make you a hero of the anti-gay reactionary right. Or their gay poodle anyway...

" I'd feel the same way if she tried to do that to any other group of Canadians. "

..."of course" you would ;)

"Does praise from homophobes please you?" Namecalling, wow! What a unique debating technique from the left. Yes, that will bring your opponents around to your side.

"Fred what are we going to do with you?" Off hand? I'd say give him some respect for having the courage to go against the grain. Mind you, respect for others who disagree with you has never been the looney left's big virtue, has it?

Kudos for defening Dr. Sommerville. Ryerson should be ashamed of itself.

Interesting point on Iran - and it's not just gay activists. Those who claim to support women's rights are silent on Iran; those who claim to be concerned about nuclear weapons, nuclear proliferation, or even nuclear energy are silent on Iran; the list goes on and on.

I don't consider myself a gay activist, an activist yes, but not on the basis of sexuality or marriage.

I think that just ingoring this woman and letting Ryerson do their thing would have seen the the event come and go.

I, also, didn't have this marriage thing on my political radar until I learned the federal government was flagging tax returns coming from the same address where there were two members of the same sex they deemed where to be a couple.

If they are going recognize relationships in order to take our money in the form of tax dollars, then you can't then say you can't be fully recognized. Either the feds keep their hands out of our pockets and completely not recognize my relationships or recognize it and get on with things.

Really people, with all the things going on with the world, is marriage the most important thing for your right-wing agenda. There was a time when I would have said this to the left as well, but now it is law, and the reality. The only groups agenda for this now is really the right.

The fact is that the same-sex marriage thing is here. It's time to move on. I've heardly seen the decline of civilization as we know it.

I don't see it causing a backlash for the gay community here in Canada. It only causes those with opposite views to be more vocal than they were in the past.

I do though believe everyone has the right to be heard, even if we don't agree with them. I find political correctness to be more like the linguistic policy. However, within this point of view is allowed debate.

and wow, there are a lot of anonymous comments. Wouldn't it be nice if people could actually be identifiable and take ownership over their views.

It only causes those with opposite views to be more vocal than they were in the past. That's what I meant by a backlash, but you make some good points. It's just that the more one side gets emotional, the more the other side will too. Everyone just needs to take a deep breath and step back a bit.

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My name is Fred and I am a gay conservative living in Ottawa. This blog supports limited government, the right of the State of Israel to live in peace and security, and tries to expose the threat to us all from cultural relativism, post-modernism, and radical Islam.
I am also the founder of the Free Thinking Film Society in Ottawa (www.freethinkingfilms.com)